It’s easy for supporters of anti-gun polices to suggest that all law abiding citizens be disarmed and for gun ownership to be restricted, because most of them haven’t grown up in high-crime areas where they live under the constant threat of being assaulted, raped, mugged or murdered on a daily basis.

But when you see the reality of private gun ownership and how it actually helps to not only stop crimes in progress, but prevents them from happening in the first place, you can no longer ignore the necessity of having an armed citizenry, especially in cities and states where criminals will knowingly prey on innocents because they have absolutely nothing to lose.

Case in point: Detroit’s new police chief James Craig once worked in California, where it is a common occurrence for Sheriffs and Chiefs to deny concealed-carry weapons permits to their residents. They often do so without even reading the applications.

Concealed weapons permits at that time… it was an act of Congress to get one. Police chiefs just did not author or give approval for that.

As Craig noted at a recent press conference, this was his orientation, because everyone was doing it. He was, by all accounts, one of those government officials who restricted Americans’ ability to protect themselves.

But he soon changed his tune when he realized that maybe these gun toting radicals were on to something.

So I go to Maine and there are stacks of CCW’s, and I was denying them because that was my orientation.

What was interesting about Maine [is there are] lots of concealed weapons permits.

My orientation changed very quickly.

But here was the key with Maine… It’s one of the safest places in America. And it’s not like crime is non-existent. Certainly in Portland, Maine they had gangs, they had narcotics suspects, they had shootings.

But clearly suspects knew that good Americans were armed.

Craig made similar statements last month, where he specifically noted that law-abiding citizens carrying guns leads to lower crime rates.

“There’s a number of CPL (concealed pistol license) holders running around the city of Detroit. I think it acts as a deterrent. Good Americans with CPLs translates into crime reduction. I learned that real quick in the state of Maine.” (WJR 760 AM)

There’s a reason that self defense killings in Detroit spiked to 2200% above the national average in recent years. Detroit’s bankruptcy proceedings have left their police force decimated, response times in the double digits, and criminal running rampant. This left residents, especially in poverty-stricken areas, with no other option than to depend on themselves.

How many innocent people who want nothing more than to be left alone have preserved their way of life because they had a firearm on them when they were assaulted by those who would do them harm?

According to Chief Craig, over 300 legally armed Americans successfully defended themselves in Detroit last year. Opponents of concealed-carry will group that statistic with criminal homicide in an effort to cook the numbers, but in fact those incidents are considered justifiable homicides. There were likely hundreds, if not thousands, of other unreported incidents in which a firearm was used to prevent a crime.

We often hear anti-gun proponents tout “common sense” policies that restrict the ownership and purchase of self defense firearms, but common sense dictates that by doing so law abiding citizens will be the only ones without guns. When you restrict private gun ownership, only the criminals will have them. A perfect example of this is the city of Chicago, where private ownership is restricted. Cops are outnumbered 500-to-1 and have likened the city to tribal warfare in Iraq.

As James Craig suggests, when good Americans have access to firearms, and are allowed to carry and use them in situations where their lives may be threatened, most criminals will think twice before attacking a random person on the street.

When it hits the fan, don’t say we didn’t warn you. Mac Slavo is the editor of SHTFplan.com, a resource hub for alternative news, contrarian commentary and strategies that you can take to protect yourself from the coming global paradigm shift.